


Endings and Beginnings

by weakinteraction



Category: Exalted (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: A tiny bit femslashy between two of the Original Characters but not enough to tag it F/F, Constellations, Gen, Sidereal Exalted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-26 13:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18181490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: A young woman grows up knowing that there is something strange about her destiny, but finds the truth is far stranger than she could have ever imagined.





	Endings and Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raininshadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/gifts).



The clearing was their secret place, where they could just be themselves. Back home, they were the next generation: Rainha the chieftess-in-waiting, training all her life to inherit from her mother; Aranya seemingly destined to take on the mantle of theriomancer when her grandmother passed away. And, some said, Rainha's consort.

Strange, how everyone around her was so confident that they knew Aranya's future, when she was the one being trained to tell it, and couldn't work it out at all. She had learned to read the movements of the scurrying creatures of the undergrowth; of the great cats that stalked the outer reaches of the village, never approaching the humans too closely; of the birds that fluttered in the branches of the trees; but whenever she tried to learn from them her own fate, the signs were muddled, or outright contradictory. She always felt as though she was on the verge of understanding something, without ever knowing what it was.

Aranya lay back and looked up. What she loved most about this place was that it was the only place within easy walking distance of the village where you could see anything of the night sky. She knew that the small patch revealed between the trees was nothing to the majesty of the sky as she imagined it might be seen stretching from horizon to horizon across the plains of the north and south, or in the utmost western sea. But this was quite possibly the last patch of night sky before the elemental pole of wood -- further east, the trees grew ever thicker. Aranya's people occasionally encountered the tribes who lived even deeper in the woods, who never saw the sky, night or day, except through a thick canopy of leaves, who never walked the ground but instead lived their whole lives in the branches of the encircling trees. They were friendly enough, for the most part, but their ways were strange. Aranya's grandmother had warned her that they were human, that she must not attempt to use their movements for divination -- but the way she said it made it sound as though she herself had attempted it once, long ago.

Aranya reached into her small travelling pack and unwrapped her most precious possession: the book that a traveller had once traded with her, in exchange for a reading. He had, he said, been on a quest to find the eastern pole. He had asked her -- still a girl, then, really -- to tell him if he would be successful. Aranya had tried to demur, saying that her grandmother was who he should really be asking, but he had insisted on her being the one to cast his future. At that moment, a dragonfly had landed on his sleeve. She had told him that this was auspicious, that he would indeed reach the pole. She had not decided not to tell him of the ways in which such a short-lived creature was an ill omen, but the look he had given her had always made her wonder if he knew more than he was letting on about divination.

The book came all the way from the Blessed Isle. There were many things about the book that were odd or puzzling, from the high-flown language it used to describe the way that the heavens reflected the will of the gods, to its dedication to someone called the "Scarlet Empress", to its odd insistence that it had been written by a _man_ , but Aranya knew it inside and out now. So well, that even though the starlight was too dim to read by, it was really only an aide-memoire, a totem, for her.

Rainha came back from the stream, where she had been washing her hands clean after carefully extracting venom from the snake she had captured. Released now, it had slithered away, hissing a baleful promise of revenge: that it had been bested this time, but Rainha would not be so lucky again.

Rainha settled down next to Aranya, and they lay together in companionable silence for a while. Then she said, "So, what are we looking at?"

Aranya pointed. "The book says that _that_ is the Gauntlet," she said. "The sign of matriarchs who act in the greater good."

She felt Rainha staring at her, intensely enough that Aranya tore her eyes away from the heavens to return her gaze. "Aranya," Rainha said gently, "are you casting my horoscope?"

Aranya swallowed. "Do you want me to be?"

Rainha didn't answer, and Aranya decided not to press the point. Because the book said other things as well. It said that those under the sign of the Gauntlet would be confronted with impossible choices, on the battlefield and off it. Impossible choices that they would make. That that was their strength. It said that the Gauntlet carrying her cudgel was always at war, not with the other stars but with destiny itself. She had been cast up there in the First Age by the old gods, though the author of the book merely reported the contradictory accounts that it was either punishment for her hubris or because they wished to see her finally win her battle, without coming down on one side or the other. Which was odd, as most of the stories in the book were rather pat, the resolutions too simple for the messy reality of life as Aranya experienced it. But perhaps things had been different, before the world had passed into this present age, what the book called the Age of Sorrows.

"What's that bright star, there?"

Aranya's eyes followed Rainha's pointing finger, though they did not need to. "The book says that the brightest lights in the sky are not stars at all, but the Celestial Maidens themselves."

"The Celestial Maidens?"

"They wander the heavens, keeping the stars in the right places. Moving them when they have to." And so, if there was one in the Gauntlet, the Gauntlet was losing her fight.

"And what's that one?"

"The very brightest is the Maiden of Serenity. But I don't think we are seeing her ... It's difficult, we don't come here often enough for me to be certain I've reckoned time correctly the way the book does."

"I'm sorry," Rainha said. "I wish we had more time, just for the two of us."

"We're both busy," Aranya said. She looked away. "We both have responsibilities."

"I think-- I _believe_ that this is the Maiden of Secrets." She frowned. "But it might be the Maiden of Endings."

"I see," Rainha said. "And what does that mean?"

"We should go home," Aranya said. It was only as she said the words that she was filled with sudden conviction that they were true.

Rainha caught the urgency in her tone, and leapt up, leading the way along the forest paths.

* * *

As they approached the village, Rainha held up her hand in the huntress' sign for "stop; be silent". Aranya almost collided with her back, and ended up having to peer over her shoulder to understand what had stopped her in her tracks.

The whole village, it seemed, was gathered around the great pine tree that towered high into the forest canopy. It was ... diseased, was the only word. It had turned russet brown, and the whole floor was carpeted with fallen needles. Its branches seemed to have become twisted: when Aranya tried to focus on one in particular, it appeared normal, but the rest of the tree in her peripheral vision became distorted.

What could have happened? The tales said that the tree was centuries old. It had looked nothing like this when they had left a couple of hours ago.

"There she is!" Aranya realised that one of the villagers was pointing at them -- no, at _her_.

There was a commotion, but it fell back into silence instantly when the chieftess spoke. "Rainha," she said. "Bring Aranya forward."

"What's happening?" Aranya said.

"Come on," Rainha said. "You heard my mother."

"Rainha!" Aranya said at the too-firm grip on her arm.

A few moments later, she was standing in front of the chieftess. The look on her face was impassive. Her grandmother, on the other hand ...

"It was the ants that told me," her grandmother said. "Fleeing their nests. I looked to see what they were fleeing from ..." She opened her clenched fist, and saw a collection of small bones. Charred. "I never taught you necromantic rituals," she said.

"And I never learned any!" Aranya protested. "Whoever did this, it wasn't me."

But she felt Rainha step away from her, then saw her in her peripheral vision, crossing the short distance to join her mother.

"And what of that precious book of yours?" the chieftess said. "How are we to know that it did not teach you this dark magic?"

"It's an astrology book," Aranya said. "About the stars! Nothing to do with ... any of this. Rainha, _you_ know that."

"You are banished," the chieftess said. "I do not pretend to know what type of darkness your allegiance truly belongs to, but it is clear that we are not your people. We will not allow you to take us down this path. Leave now, and do not trouble us again." She glanced for a moment at her daughter before turning back to Aranya. "Do not force us to raise arms against you."

"It's not true," Aranya said. She looked at Rainha, who stood impassive by her mother. "It's not true!"

She turned to her grandmother, but her grandmother looked away, dropping the bones on the floor. Whatever she saw there caused her great distress, though only Aranya could tell. But clearly it did not convince her of Aranya's innocence. "You have been the ruin of your home," she said.

Aranya looked up at the tree; the effect was spreading to neighbouring trees, to the undergrowth. Death and decay all around. "You should leave too," Aranya said, addressing Rainha's mother directly. "I do not think it will be safe here soon."

"Do not expect me to take the advice of a traitor."

"Goodbye," Aranya said, looking directly at Rainha for the last time.

* * *

Aranya lost track of time in her flight through the forest. She slept in snatches, drank and bathed in brooks where she could, trapped animals to eat, though far less expertly that Rainha would have managed. She cursed the fate that had deprived her of Rainha's company; at the very least could they not have run away together? At least she still had the book, as she had been carrying it when she fled. The moments when she felt safe enough to sit down and comfort herself by reading it were the closest she came to having a measure of time passing.

She had read from it perhaps a dozen times Aranya had no way of knowing how long it had been when she stumbled on the overgrown city. But she knew immediately that she had come into a place that had once been great. Somewhere that must have been a centre of trade, of learning, of arcane power and military prowess, left now to ruin. And here in the east, ruin meant reclamation by the forest.

The faintest outlines of buildings were still visible, the great city streets discernible in the patterns of growth of the trees and smaller plants. Occasionally, pieces of architecture were recognisable -- great fallen spires with vines tangled around them, or collapsed domes visible between the trees whose roots had cracked them.

There was something that felt almost familiar about it all, even though Aranya had never seen any sort of large structure constructed of any material other than wood.

Eventually, it grew dark, and she decided to seek shelter. She found a black tomb whose smooth walls had suffered the depredations of the forest less than any of the other structures, and though it looked forbidding.

"I knew you would come here," came a voice. "Fitting enough, I suppose. Fleeing from a deathland to a tomb. And for other reasons."

"I'm sorry, a ... a deathland?"

"Your village," the voice said.

"What do you know about my village?" A dark suspicion arose in Aranya. "Are you a ... dark spirit? Was it you who twisted the great tree?"

A woman stepped out of the shadows. She appeared dishevelled, but wore a set of robes that gave her a bearing of great learning. She was carrying a book, one that dwarfed Aranya's slim volume.

"Who are you?" Aranya asked.

"That is not important," she said, then relented. "Burnished Steel, is what you will come to know me by, I hope."

"You do not look like a dark spirit," Aranya said.

"I should hope not."

"What happened to my village? What is happening to it?"

"It is a deathland, now. The Abyssal who claimed it for her master was more subtle in her methods than most, but the death of such a ... totemic part of your village's culture was quite sufficient. That, and the massacre."

"Massacre? Are ... are they all dead?"

"No. Some are ghouls now. And some escaped. A few."

"Rainha?" If any escaped, Rainha would have been among them, she was sure.

"Honestly, child, none of that will matter soon," she said. "It is almost time. You have been Chosen."

Aranya should have been scared, but instead she thought back to the clearing: the Maiden, blazing bright in the centre of the Gauntlet. The Maiden whose identity she had not been sure of. "Chosen?" she asked, wondering.

"Yes, Chosen," came another voice, from the doorway. A tall man was walking through it, carrying not a book but a pen, though Aranya could not see on what he was going to write. Her immediate impression of him was almost awestruck, but she quickly decided that she didn't trust him. "But it is not the Maiden of Secrets who claimed your first incarnation, at the Dawn of the First Age. I'm afraid you, my dear, have the misfortune to be Chosen of the Maiden of Endings."

"Well, I'll give you credit where it's due, Quickened Blade," Burnished Steel said. "You always did know how to make an impressive entrance."

"Oh, Burnished Steel, you're not _still_ bent out of shape about the time I arrived fashionably late and charmed Aralaneopth into rearranging a few calendar entries?" the newcomer said, seemingly ignoring Aranya completely.

And yet, Aranya felt as though there was something familiar about these two. Watching them, she had the same sense of understanding without knowing that she had when she attempted to divine her own future.

It was only as they began to fight, though, that she realised there was something more than human about them. There was some sort of sorcerous exchange going on between them, barely perceptible except for the way they both began to glow.

Suddenly, though, the woman who had been waiting in the tomb took on an altogether different appearance, her face becoming hideous, barely human at all.

"You _are_ a dark spirit! No, you're a monster!" Aranya said, thinking that the man had done something to expose her true nature.

"No," the creature rasped. "It's just--" a racking cough "--Pattern Bite."

"Visage Twisting Venom, if I don't miss my guess." Quickened Blade laughed. Not cruelly, not quite. "How much Paradox had you already accrued to yourself, arranging things _just so_ so that you could be here now, that attempting a simple charm like that tipped you over the edge, just because it's a teensy bit out of character for the Treasure Trove?"

"Perhaps if you didn't have such competent people working under you, you'd have less time available to give to the spiders."

"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to call you competent," he said. "After all, this little attempt at pre-Exaltation recruitment doesn't really seeming to be going your way, does it?"

Aranya's brain was racing a mile a minute to keep up. "You two work together?" Aranya said.

"To both of our eternal regret, yes," the man said. "Though believe me, Burnished Steel, you'll be on the worst possible duties after pulling this little stunt."

"As though you don't give me all the scut work already," Burnished Steel said.

Aranya summoned up all her courage to interrupt their argument. "And you're fighting over ... me? Why would you want to recruit me?"

"Oh, dear, your education _has_ been lacking," Burnished Steel said.

"I think _that_ is something we would both agree on," the man said smoothly. "It would have been better if you had been found much younger; you would have been much better off growing up in Yu-Shan, I think. But I suppose it was always going to be the case that one such as yourself would have something _special_ for their Exaltation. And something more difficult."

Aranya barely heard any of what he had said after "Yu-Shan"; the book talked about Yu-Shan, in elliptical hints and allusions in some of the myths. "The Celestial City? You're from the Celestial City?"

" _You're_ from the Celestial City," the woman said to Aranya. "At least, your prior incarnation was, and the one before him ..."

"All the way back to the moment in the First Age when the Maidens raised us up," the man said.

"This is all very difficult to believe," Aranya said. "Very difficult to trust--"

But even as she spoke the words, Aranya could feel _something_ beginning to happen. A great power coursing through her, memories of another life -- other lives -- burning into her brain. She saw, for just the tiniest perceptible moment, the Maiden. She knew the Maiden's identity with certainty now. And she also knew with certainty -- and great sorrow -- that the Maiden had nothing to say to her.

She was Obsidian Sepulchre, Chosen of the Maiden of Endings. She had been Exalted twice before, and one day far in the future would be again. Her Essence had attached itself to the girl Aranya at her birth, but only now was it coming into its full bloom.

The memories were muddled, confused, but she understood something now of the conflict playing out in front of her. Quickened Blade was of the Bronze Faction and Burnished Steel of the Gold ... Her past incarnation had refused to join either; he saw nothing but sorrow in their endless conflict. Her first incarnation ... her first incarnation had had her own role to play in the fall of the Solar Deliberative.

"Your games are over now," she said to the pair of them. "Take me home. Take me back to heaven."

* * *

Obsidian Sepulchre stepped out of the Gate into Creation. The dirt path stretched as far as she could see in both directions. The sun was setting; soon, the stars would be visible. It took a moment for her to remember that these eyes had never seen the stars spread wide like this, even though now she held grave responsibilities for their very movements.

There was no one here. Perhaps there would not be for some time. It was no matter; she was confident that she had not miscalculated. She would wait.

Many years had passed since she had returned to Yu-Shan, but this was the first time she had set foot outside its bounds since her Exaltation. Her belated re-training, and her many and varied tasks in the Division of Endings, had kept her far too busy for that.

She had decided to wear the Pillar, although its trappings did not come easily to her. A Chosen of Serenity she was not, and never would be. Even in her very first incarnation, Obsidian Sepulchre had seen further than most of her fellow Sidereals; that the present Age was troubled would have been no surprise to her, though the details, perhaps, would have been. That the Neverborn would have twisted the essences of the Chosen of the Unconquered Sun himself ... that was a sign of how far things had fallen.

But that was why she was here: to fight back in her own small way against the deathknights. And if she was settling up the accounts of her other past, the one this body had had in Creation, well, there was nothing to say that a Sidereal Exalt had to have only one motive for their actions. As a matter of fact, it was almost _de rigueur_ to have at least three or four.

At length, a figure appeared on the path, striding confidently ahead. Obsidian Sepulchre felt her heart race for a moment: the part of her that was still Aranya recognised the gait instantly. But as the woman got closer, she began to see the heaviness in it; accumulated sorrows weighing her down far more than the weapons and equipment she wore slung about her.

"You walk by night," she said, when Rainha was close enough.

"As do you, it seems," Rainha said. Warily, she added, "Or stand. What of it?"

"Where do you walk?"

"Wherever the road takes me," Rainha said. "I have no home, and so I go where fate takes me. I try to do what good I can. Do you need assistance?"

"What makes you think that I do?"

"There are few who walk the paths at night without need of protection," Rainha said. "There are brigands and worse in these parts."

"And do you offer me yours?"

"If you need it."

"I do need something of you," Aranya said. "Come closer." She allowed her anima to flare slightly, illuminating the scene.

The questions spilled out of Rainha's mouth, almost simultaneously. "How did you do that? Do I ... know you?"

Aranya answer the first. "It's a simple enough charm," she lied.

Rainha reached out and Aranya allowed her to touch her face. "I do know you, don't I?" Rainha looked at her, and the sharp edges life had beaten into her face softened, just for a moment. "Aranya ... Why do I know your name?"

"It is of no importance," Obsidian Sepulchre said. Rainha wouldn't remember this meeting, once she had returned through the Gate. And now that they had touched, her petition would come into effect.

"Are you ...? Have I ...? I feel ..." Her eyes narrowed. "Have you just _blessed_ me, somehow?"

"A blessing from the Maiden I serve is not necessarily something one should wish for, nomad." Rainha reached out again, but Aranya stepped backwards out of her reach. "I have cursed you," she said, sharply -- too sharply.

"Aranya, I-- I don't remember what happened, not really, but I _do_ remember how I felt. It comes back to me, sometimes, as I'm falling asleep, not fully awake but not yet dreaming. _You_ come back to me. I was powerless, out of control." Her voice hardened. " _And I swore never to be that way again._ "

Perhaps it had started as an attempt at an apology. "I have cursed you," Aranya said again. "You will not remember this, not consciously."

"Then I am cursed," Rainha said. "So be it. But if I won't remember then, at least, you should tell me my doom. So that I might know at least for a moment."

The curse was simple, as all the best were. Good enough that she had been able to persuade both Burnished Steel and Quickened Blade to join the list of cosignatures. Whatever their conflicts over the proper way to deal with the Solars, the Abyssals were true anathema to both factions. The God of Silence himself had even deigned to countersign her petition; she still could not tell whether he had been overlooking the fact that she was revisiting an aspect of her pre-Exaltation past, or if he found it somehow fitting. Those who served the Maiden of Endings wished to see the threads on the Loom of Fate tied off neatly, not twisted or severed entirely by the servants of the Neverborn.

Aranya spoke, and let her anima flare as she did, exploiting her resplendent destiny to its fullest as she intoned, "She shall be the ruin of her home."

"Your efforts are wasted then," Rainha said. "I told you, I have no home. It is a deathland now."

"Then you do have a home," Obsidian Sepulchre said. "It was stolen from you."

Rainha's eyes widened. "Then are you--"

"I cannot tell you the route that you will take," Obsidian Sepulchre said. "Only where it leads. Only where, in your words, fate will take you. But that, that is now written in the stars themselves. You shall be the ruin of your home."

"Then I shall have revenge." Rainha looked at her, and suddenly Aranya found herself back in the clearing, all those years ago. Just the two of them, responsibilities forgotten for a moment. "Thank you," Rainha said.

They stood a moment longer, before Rainha turned away, to carry on down the starlit path.

Obsidian Sepulchre watched until the woman was out of sight before summoning the Gate.


End file.
